6.23.2010

Theme: Snakes in a Puzzle — Each theme answer is a familiar phrase containing four Ss.

Theme answers:

20A: Confident (SELF-POSSESSED).

26A: Second-counter's opening (ONE MISSISSIPPI).

41A: Evaluation by co-workers (PEER ASSESSMENT).

47A: Professional hitter? (HIRED ASSASSIN).

61A: Each of the four longest puzzle answers has two pairs of them (ESSES).

Yep, all the theme answers have four Ss alright. Love love love ONE MISSISSIPPI. The others are just meh. Also, I was starting to get annoyed by all the plurals until I realized that all the Ss in the theme answers made that more or less inevitable.

Talking Points:

10A: Short pans? (UGHS). Pans as in "bad reviews."

14A: The Dixie Chicks, e.g. (TRIO).

17A: Bell sound (DONG). Alrighty then.

33A: Fontanne of Broadway (LYNN). Unfair! The name of the Broadway theater, which I learned from crosswords, is Lunt-Fontanne. With the L and the first N in place, I thought I was so smart!

40A: Cream dispensers (TUBES). Whatever you say. Oh, I was thinking cream as in food. But this is like medicinal cream. Okay then.

45A: Cut into slices (CARVE). Can't see the word CARVE without recalling the horrible RECARVE fiasco of 2008. (Sorry, Caleb.)

62A: Fargo's st. (N. DAK.). I read the abbreviation "st." to mean "street." I know Fargo's a small town but I swear there's more than one street!

4D: Under-the-bed hider (BOGEYMAN). PuzzleSon would like to remind you all that the bogeyman checks to make sure Chuck Norris isn't under his bed.

26 comments:

When I saw that it was Dan Naddor I was expecting a "pun-fest."Oh well, this was just as much FUN!

Lots to like today.EINSTEIN for BrainCIAO for "Later!"GOSSIP for DirtSETS for Match makers?Then you throw in an IDIOT's land, IRAN. And a couple of unknowns I ONLY got via the crosses, Lisa LOEB and MENA Suvari and the FUN level is going way up.

Liked all the ESSES themes, though I really miss Dan's puns.

UGHS for Short pans? is just a great answer.

I BEEN HAD? = WTF?Have heard "I've been had" and the grammar police should arrest this one but it was a minor holdup.

And who doesn’t like this “Guess-less” theme (besides Rex)?Once you see the double double esses, all the theme words just pop into place.

There were a couple of UGHS though… I BEEN HAD (huh?) and OARS for ROWS.Lots of fun stuff… BOGEYMAN, “Bonehead” (IDIOT), and “Brain” (EINSTEIN).

When I saw “Partner of Seals”, I immediately thought of HEIDI Klum.And for those of you who weren’t around in the 70’s---SEALS AND CROFTI thought, now that we just entered summer, that I’d put in this great vid clip.Nice BLEND of voices!

Well, it’s another RAINY day in Chicago (vying for the Seattle records)!

I really enjoy the Dan Naddor puzzles and this was no exception. I figured out the double SS's before getting the theme fills. Once I realized I was looking for the double-S, I knew one theme fill had to be a Mississippi.

Cream dispenser was a good clue. I was thinking of the coffee variety, and scratched my head after getting T _ B E S. Then the lightbulb clicked on. I felt like such an EINSTEIN being able to complete this puzzle without any outside help! LOL

Only one tiny nitpick. Cecil B. DeMille. I have never heard, at least in my lifetime, him referred to without his middle initial. I cringed at the Seals and Crofts clue. "Please, oh please pg don't post a Seals & Crofts video". She didn't. JHN took up the slack on that one. Hey, it's all fun!

One day Avenged Sevenfold is going to appear in a puzzle and I will die of heart attack.

Easy puzzle for a Naddor. I really have a problem with plurals that don't make sense like John Muir and others, which other Muir is there I'm looking but not finding them, oh it must be his wife or kids.

@Tinbeni Ditto, no write overs, cute theme, like others saw all the ssssss and the fill was easy but fun.A nephew lived in Fargo for several years (during the Grand Forks flooding) Everyone pitched in with sandbags to keep the flooding from getting into Fargo.

Other than some initial difficulty in spelling BOGEYMAN, this puzzle went down easily. I had a pause at the clue for ONE MISSISSIPPI -- didn't understand it at first. When MISSISSIPPI emerged, I wondered what could be preceding it. Aha!

29 ESSES.

Well, I need to get my HUMERI in gear and get to the gardening before it gets too hot.

Another fun Naddor puzzle. I always wonder how many are left. Liked ONE MISSISSIPI and HIRED ASSASSIN. Loved the clue for UGHS. Always like to see GOSSIP clued as Dirt. The only thing I really didn't like was 25A MUIRS. I guess many others here agree. Like @Shrub 5, I had a little problem spelling BOGEYMAN. Other than that all was good.@PG Enjoyed your write up.

@Tinbeni - maybe I'm prejudiced, but the kind of person who would allow themselves to be "had" or get into such a situation, rather than robbed, say, might just say IBEENHAD.

Anyway, wanted "a bee bite" for IBEENHAD.

The late, great Naddor could have had "Later!" as the clue for both 7D and 23A.

BEECH-Nut Baby Foods is about 45 min. from me as the crow flies down the Gov. Thomas E. Dewey Thruway to Canajoharie. (Can of what?) In 1987, An unsung hero, Jerome (Girolamo) Licari, a chemist a local Sicilian-American, blew the whistle on the company for trying to slip sugar in instead of fruit.Heads rolled, huge fines paid. Nestle bought the company.

Don't know Lisa LOEB or MENA Suvari. I'm sure they're great.

I'm very grumpy today. Had my dental surgery on the deep end of an old root canal. During which the dentist said to his nurse, "I've never seen anything like that!" Comforting. Since it's 5PM, not 8AM anymore, I'll add that part of the root was in the bone and another part in the tooth. Not only the tooth but some bone went into the red bag waste. The bovine bone fill alone cost $480. I'll need an implant if the bone heals OK. The nearby 2 teeth are root canalers. My Rush Limbaugh pain medicine only made me nauseated and dizzy. Did y'all know that Vicodin means 6 x codeine, as in Roman numeral VI?

@sifingi Sorry about your tooth. Ouch!! I have a great fear of crowns and root canals. I have had the same reaction to "Rush Limbaugh" medicine. As a matter of fact, just hearing Rush Limbaugh's name makes me nauseated : > )

@Mac - searched all over for some old Darvocet, drug of choice. My pain isn't that bad, so I'll take Aleve. I'm pretty good at pain, anyway, but have had 2 ulcers (30 years apart) and don't want another.I've had > 15 root canals and don't complain. I'm glad all this stuff exists. Without modern science, I imagine what I could have been - not just short and fat, but long white hair and no teeth. Bag lady material. When I came to the dentist this morning, I did complain about his not having put the AC on yet, though.It bothers me a little that I'm going to a wedding 7/3. Don't say cheese.

I have a good friend who has the best address on the entire planet. He lives here in San Francisco (blessing enough in and of itself) but he lives at the first house on the street and his address is....wait for it....